1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an occupant protecting system for protecting an occupant by deploying an air bag from an air bag module disposed within a seat back.
2. Description of the Related Art
An occupant protecting system for use upon side collision of a vehicle is known from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No.6-64491. In the above known system, an air bag module is mounted within a side door or within a seat, so that an air bag is deployed between an occupant and the side door upon side collision of a vehicle to protect the occupant.
When the air bag is mounted within the seat, the expanded air bag is deployed outside, breaking a sewing section of a cover member of the seat. When the sewing section has such a structure that an ornamental ball edge is clamped between a pair of cover members, if the pair of cover members and the ball edge are separated from one another, the ball edge is left to bridge an air bag deployment opening defined between the pair of separated cover members, thereby providing a possibility that the air bag may interfere with the ball edge, so that the smooth deployment of the air bag may be hindered.
The air bag expanded from the air bag module mounted within the seat is deployed outside, breaking the cover member of the seat. For this reason, if the strength distribution of the seat including the cover members is not set appropriately, it is difficult to deploy the air bag in a desired direction.